Dr M reveals his dark side: Only limited human rights needed in Malaysia

As expected, former premier Mahathir Mohamad has backed recent comments criticizing humans rights from a former top cop who had helped him successfully prosecute and incarecerate Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim on manifestly fabricated sodomy charges,

Abdul Rahim Mohd Noor, the former Inspector General of Police who admitted beating up Anwar and giving him a black eye during his detention in 1998, had a day ago criticized the growing call for human rights in Malaysia as akin to communism. His remarks were seen as being disparaging of the reform and new politics movement preached by Anwar's Pakatan Rakyat.

On Monday, Mahathir rushed to defend Rahim, saying Malaysia should support human rights only as much as it can and not pay heed to critics who ask for excessive rights.

“In general, we have to support human rights but only as far as we’re able to. If we want to give excessive rights like in the West, to the point where men can marry men and women can marry women, that’s not necessary,” Mahathir told a press conference.

No longer revered, seen as the root cause for most of Malaysia's evils

Mahathir, who ruled with a fist of iron for 22 years until 2003, also offered the excuse that Malaysia was a developing country and faced “certain restrictions” that barred it from becoming more liberal in its approach.

He also reverted to his favorite bogeyman, the Unite States, insisting it was worse than Malaysian in terms of its human rights record. “We detain people under the Internal Security Act but they detain people without laws and even torture them,” he said.

But the time when Malaysians indulged him as the feisty grand old man of local politics is over. Mahathir is now regarded as a bad brand name, leaving a bitter after-taste despite efforts to shore up his legacy with an auto-bigraphy that was slammed as a blatant bid to rewrite history.

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